PetSmart Turned My Dog Into Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman
Welcome to the Merrell household, population - 5 chickens, 5 cats, 3 dogs, and 1 leopard gecko. Oh, I forgot to mention the humans in the house, but for now, we're focusing on the two dogs in the picture below.
Meet Gryffin, she is a four-year-old gold and white mix of a little bit of everything. She is spayed...remember that as this story goes on. Meet Coda, he is a one-year-old Miniature Australian Shepherd. They will occasionally play with each other and they are both very spoiled. Gryffin also leaves a trail of fur everywhere she goes. So, we decided to drop her off at Petsmart in Lufkin and try out their 'Furminator' service.
We picked her up later and we were delighted with the results. The groomers said they couldn't believe the amount of fur they got off her. Gryffin is soft to the touch, she has on a cute pink bandana, and she smells wonderful.
When we get home Coda is first to greet us at the door. He usually likes to play with me for a few minutes, but not this time. Gryffin has been gone for a few hours and Coda wants to know why. He starts sniffing her coat, and that's when we knew something was different.
Dogs smell each other, yes, I get that. But, not like this. Coda buried his snout into Gryffin's coat, and he wouldn't stop. His mannerisms changed and his pupils got huge. Remember that scene from Finding Nemo?
Yeah, it was just like that. But we weren't sure how to intervene. I don't know exactly what was in that Petsmart perfume, but we were watching the birth of a new Looney Tunes cartoon starring Coda as Pepe Le Pew and Gryffin as the helpless target of Pepe's desire.
I've seen dogs react to another dog in heat. This was more than that. Coda wasn't interested in wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. No, he was shooting for a long-term relationship. You could tell in his stare. He wanted to protect Gryffin. He wanted to take care of her. Gryffin was Jenny and Coda was Forrest Gump.
I'm not angry with PetSmart at all. They did a wonderful makeover on Gryffin. I just wonder if they realize the marketing power of that particular scent that they used. If you have a female dog with self-esteem issues, believe me, this stuff will do the trick. It will cause all the male dogs to look at your girl like Richard Gere looked at Julia Roberts in the black cocktail dress scene from Pretty Woman.
Sorry to compare all these emotions to movie scenes, but that's just the best way I could get my point across. Speaking of movies...